Me?  A Dragon?  WHO wants stuff and mount my head?
by Corwin Black
Summary: The twisted god Ozzymandius aka The Collector, is on a hunt...  and I'm the prey.  Good thing I'm a dragon.  Wait a minute, how did I become a dragon?  I thought I was some nobody from University and Country club?  Oh CRAP!


He was really generous sounding. Sitting there in his chair that was distinctly designed to be a little less grand than himself, couldn't have anyone looking at the chair instead of him, but could just sit in any ordinary chair. The chair he sat had to be worthy of him, but not more grand. As it was, understanding this balance, the balance that of a megalomaniac has was the key to defeating him. Keeping him off balance was he key. He couldn't ever be defeated by brute strength. He made certain of that. But he never understood his own concept of balance. This was one reason that he had such trouble finding "competent" help.

I had been sufficiently tortured, neglected, mutilated, and sown back together multiple times... that I was ready to accept his offer, or so he thought. What he didn't know was that my god was greater than him. It was a grudge match really. It had nothing to do with me. It had a lot to do with beating up the one I worshiped. I was his Cleric, and The Collector was definitely going to have his way with that one.

"Ah Mr. Gray." he said to me. Gray wasn't my name, I don't think he even knew my name. It wasn't important enough for someone of his divine status to know. His "Majesty" continued. "I see that you are within in an inch of death."

_no shit_ I thought to myself. Actually I had died many, many times during this ordeal. I would die and then one of his clerics would resurrect me, and the whole thing would start over again. I could of course refuse to come back from the dead. A soul always knew the name and the alignment of the person attempting to bring them back from the dead. But The Collector made certain that he would kill an innocent child every time I refused to be raised. Nice guy. When he told me that it was a moment of clarity. The Collector would die at my hand if I ever had anything to say about it. I wasn't going to evangelize to him. Nope, just kill him.

I wanted his death to be my destiny. Of course that's what he wanted as well as I would confirm latter. But that didn't stop me from wanting his end. I decided that revenge wouldn't be efficient enough. Revenge requires careful planning not to harm the subject in question until he knows its you that is doing it. Revenge requires prolonged suffering, and that wastes your resources. I didn't want him to suffer in a prolonged manner. The world was just better off without him. He would suffer much at my hand, and he would be convinced that I wanted revenge. But that was really never the case. That was just a tool to keep him off balance from my real goal. His total destruction. The simplest way to achieve such a objective would be to put a 45 to his brain stem and pull the trigger. Bam. Dead before he heard the shot and already cooling to room temperature before he hit the ground. Very efficient. But you its not that easy to end the life of a god. The Collector was a god. His proper name was Ozzymandius. He was divine, and immortal in every way. He couldn't just be killed. Killing him was little more than a minor inconvenience for someone like him.

I was plopped in a chair, as I couldn't stand. My feet had been sawed off with a fine saw. One had anyway, the other had been burned off with hot iron. Same thing with my eyes, fingers... you get the idea. But my ears were untouched. I went to the ear doctor once a week to make sure they were in perfect condition. After all its no good to suffer at the hands of a god if he can't talk to you about it. Interestingly a permanent silence spell had been placed directly on my voice box. That as also one of the few things that he hadn't damaged or mutilated during my stay at his house of pain.

He removed the silence spell from my voice. He spoke.

"His lord and greatness, the Collector will speak to you." a singsong female voice sang to me in perfect harmonic pitch. She was a soprano. There was a chores backing her up with reverberation, and a touch of flange. It sounded like I was in a cathedral. The Collector's cathedral no doubt.

"Ah, Gray. Speak to your master."

"Fuck you." I anticipated being run through or decapitated immediately, that's what usually happened. I could hear the guard drawing his sword, but the Collector stopped him. I was totally blind. My nose was burned off with a hot poker, but I could hear quite well. There was an uncomfortable silence. The collector hummed in a satisfied sing song manner.

"Good he is ready." he said

"The highest of the all in all of creation is pleased." Sang the chorus of choir girls, right on cue. Their perfect pitch filled the cathedral. If their voices were being used to praise a good being it would have been beautiful. As it was though it was one of the most chilling licks of music I had ever heard. My heart was only filled with compassion for the singers. The Collector couldn't have anything of beauty that surpassed him. I could only imagine what horrors he had inflicted upon the choir of girls.

That's when the dancing started. There was a magnificent orchestra that came into play now. The amusingness of the girl's choir was only a small taste of the magnificence of the display around me now. It went on for about three or four minutes. There was a display of jubilance that was second to none. The only sad part about it was that all of the jubilance was obtained under the threat of unspeakable torture if they didn't sing or dance. I could tell the difference. I think the collector could as well. He preferred it this way. The sound of joy with the resonance of suffering was music to his ears. Genuine praise was something he couldn't tolerate.

"You're choir is amazing" I said truthfully.

He slapped me with a clawed hand. "Don't mock me!" he said. Bingo. He couldn't take genuine praise.

The choir and dancers began an interlude of disharmony, sounded a lot like a violin deliberately played out of tune. The concerto of dissonance transitioned into a bridge that begged the collector to bless all of creation with his grace and power to set the world right again. It reminded me of a staff meeting where the collector was the boss, and the choir was the asskisser who came to every meeting to just to suck up.

The choir of doom stopped in the middle of an interlude like someone turning off the master power on a stereo system. No doubt a gesture from his deviness. "I will indeed set things right again." He said full of himself while trying to sound as humble as he could pretend. He was close right next to my face.

What was that smell. I didn't have much left of a scent of smell but I did smell something... like a exotic blend of coffee coming from a fresh pot. unexpected this was. So much so that I decided to store it away for further analysis.

"Gray", he said to me. Over the last few centuries I've started a new hobby. Hunting for trophies. You're my next prey."

"I surrender." Said I gesturing to him with my left leg which ended in a stump from the hot iron that had burned off my foot.

"Not that simple," he said amused. I must remake you into a worthy foe.

"At least that will be a challenge." I mocked. He didn't mind this time. It was the response he was looking for. Ozzymandius had shown me another one of his cards. He didn't crave power as much as he craved control.

"Not really. You see, you simply don't have the ability to become a foe worthy of my hunting. That is why I, myself, must use a considerable amount of my power given to you in order to become worthy enough for me to hunt you."

Ok I was puzzled now. Not that he was full of himself, but what was the catch. This guy liked to be in total control of everything. Every minute, every spin, on every electron in the known universe had to be under his control. He wasn't going to make me powerful, at least not powerful enough to ever defeat him. Even if I managed to muster enough brute force to defeat a seven nation army, he would have something that he could use against me. An ace in the hole. Some secret that only he would know. I remained silent.

"Listen carefully mortal, for now I impart the rules of our hunt." I couldn't wait. I sat expressionless. "You will drink this potion." I couldn't see it of course, but he must of had an audience he was also talking to. "It will give you power, but it still wont be enough for you to be a worthy prey. Therefore I will give you a head start. Ten years."

Ouch. Ten years head start. This guy was serious. That did tell me something about him though. He had spent a lot of time preparing this. I was important to him, but not because he liked me. Because he perceived me as a week and worthless, and he would use his own power in order to display how much more power he had when he hunted me down and mounted my head on a wall next to a moose.

This was his first real big mistake. My deity loved making the last and the least into the ones who defeated the high and the mightiest. I fought back a smile. I stayed expressionless. "Lord Amazing" had made two mistakes. I had also been able to deliberately provoke a negative reaction when I gave him genuine praise. I had drawn first blood, without even knowing it. Not blood that runs in veins but the kind that runs in your soul. I had taken a way from him for a brief instant the thing he craved most. Control. He had lost control of himself.

Hope for the first time in many years filled my arteries now. I didn't let it show. I spat on the floor in a display of mock arrogance. He ate it up, roared in lighter. That was the second time I had managed to invoke a response in him, and he didn't catch it this time. I was mutilated, blind, and in all general appearance in real bad shape. But I had just gotten the upper hand... against a divine being...

I wondered if today was my birthday.

If you fail to drink this potion I will kill all the girls in the choir that you enjoy so much. There was total silence in the room. So much silence that I could hear the increase in exasperated breathing from the girl's choir like a kettle drum in a racquet ball court. I doubted anyone else would have noticed.

I managed the best look of disdain I could muster. Truth be told, I was experiencing hope for the first time since the whole thing began. I was playing along now because he was in my trap. I could hurt him. Hurt him for real. He was just about to give me a long leash to wrap around his neck and choke him with.

With the fake look outrage on my face I opened my mouth to take my medicine like a good little boy.

He poured it down my mouth. Not bad actually. I hadn't realized how dehydrated I was. "There, there," he said to me like I was a three year old, "take your medicine like a good little boy." The choir erupted in a halleluiah chorus. There was one voice I heard above all though. A sweet girl's voice. It reminded me of my niece. In the subharmonics of her voice I could hear the sorrow and her compassion for me. She wanted to take away my pain if she could. I swallowed all the potion down. It tasted great actually. I looked in her direction, the opposite direction from where the collector was now standing. My eyesight was returning now. I could see her. She couldn't have been more than six or seven years old. My vision was still blurry. I winked at her, and then shushed. Our little secret. I passed out.

CHAPTER "BORN AGAIN"

I was "born again" as the case would have it but this was ridiculous. I had a tattoo on my right inner forearm with years, months, days, hours, minutes, and seconds listed on it. No doubt this was the time I had left of my "head start". It read:

9y 11m 29d 6h 43M 23S

The seconds were courting down in the appropriate manner. I counted 10 seconds to myself... Now it read

9y 363d 6h 43M 12S

Close enough.

The waking sensation was rather like waking up underwater in the warm waters of the Caribbean. I could almost feel the soothing salt water gently caressing my entire body. It was almost as if I was actually breathing underwater without a care in the world. That's when I realized I wasn't dreaming. I was underwater.

Oh shit.

The fact that nobody was there was a good thing. It would have been about as embarrassing as falling out of bed during summer camp. What can I say . I panicked. I gagged with a reflex and threw up my lunch. Moving and thrashing I decided that I had to get air into my lungs, fast. I exhaled all the water out of my lungs and then... just breathed in more water.

After about five minutes, of thrashing about in what was sure to be a winner on "funniest home videos", I gave up, realizing that I was not going to make it to the surface in time. I also realized I wasn't going to drown.

For those of you who don't know water contains far more oxygen than atmosphere. Proportionally speaking gills are smaller compared to the size of the creature than lungs are for air breathers. That's why. Its just that lungs can't extract the O2 from the water and gills can. I was breathing underwater. Just fine. Holy shit. Things got worse, or depending on how you look at it, better.

I wasn't me anymore. Now that I realized that I wasn't going to drown I was curious as to why. Why had the collector dumped me here in the water. I looked at the ocean floor that I had been thrashing about on for the last several minutes. After the dirt settled I did indeed see that I was probably in shallow water tropics. I couldn't reach my hands or feet though. It was as if my hands and legs were now half the length that they should be. Not only that buy my wings and tail were getting in the way.

Hold on a minute. What tail and wings.


End file.
